Striking Myanmar rail workers move out as protests continue
3/20/2021

MANDALAY, Myanmar — Residents of Myanmar’s second-biggest city helped striking railway workers move out of their state-supplied housing Saturday after the authorities said they would have to leave if they kept supporting the protest movement against last month’s military coup.

© Provided by The Canadian Press
Mandalay residents carried the workers' furniture and other household items to trucks, van and pickup trucks.

The state railway workers last month went on strike as key and early supporters of the civil disobedience movement against the Feb. 1 coup that toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The military regime has sought to force them back to work through intimidation, which included a nighttime, gun-firing patrol last month through their housing area in Mandalay and a raid in the railway workers' housing area in Yangon.

Protests against the coup continued Saturday in cities and town across the country, including in Mandalay and Yangon.

The coup reversed years of slow progress toward democracy in Myanmar after five decades of military rule. In the face of persistent strikes and protests against the takeover, the junta has responded with an increasingly violent crackdown and efforts to severely limit the information reaching the outside world.

Internet access has been severely restricted, private newspapers have been barred from publishing, and protesters, journalists and politicians have been arrested in large numbers.

The independent Assistance Association for Political Prisoners has verified 235 deaths and has said the actual total — including ones where verification has been difficult —“is likely much higher.” It said it has confirmed that 2,330 people have been arrested or charged since the coup, with 1,980 still detained or remaining charged.

In addition to using lethal force to try to break up demonstrations, the security forces have been carrying out a campaign of harassment, stealing from homes they raid, said the group, which also charged that security forces have used people they arrested as human shields as they sought to break up demonstrations.

Numerous reports on social media, including videos, have shown security forces vandalizing cars parked on the street.

The U.N. agencies UNICEF and UNESCO, along with the private humanitarian group Save the Children, on Friday issued a statement criticizing the occupation of education facilities across Myanmar by security forces as a serious violation of children’s rights.

It said security forces have reportedly occupied more than 60 schools and university campuses in 13 states and regions.

“It will exacerbate the learning crisis for almost 12 million children and youth in Myanmar, which was already under tremendous pressure as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing widespread school closures,” said the statement. "Save the Children, UNESCO and UNICEF call on security forces to vacate occupied premises immediately and ensure that schools and educational facilities are not used by military or security personnel.

“Schools must be not used by security forces under any circumstances," it declared.

Calls for international action to halt the violence continue to mount.

"The junta can’t defeat the people of Myanmar united in peaceful opposition,” Tom Andrews, the U.N.’s independent expert on human rights for Myanmar, wrote on Twitter on Friday. “Desperate, it launches ruthless attacks to provoke a violent response to try and justify even more violence. It’s not working. The world must respond by cutting their access to money & weapons. Now.”

Unexpectedly strong statements were issued Friday by two of Myanmar’s fellow countries in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo urged a halt to violence and asked other regional leaders to hold a summit on the crisis.

Widodo’s move came after ASEAN foreign ministers held a March 2 meeting that reached no consensus on the crisis.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin issued a statement supporting Widodo’s call for as ASEAN summit, saying he was “appalled by the persistent use of lethal violence against unarmed civilians which has resulted in a high number of deaths and injuries, as well as suffering across the nation.”

The Associate

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M

COINBASE SETTLES $6.5M WITH CFTC FOR FALSE REPORTING AND WASH TRADING

MARCH 20, 2021, RICK STEVES

Reporting firms such as Crypto Facilities Ltd., which publishes the CME Bitcoin Real Time Index, and CoinMarketCap OpCo, LLC, used the misleading trading data from Coinbase for price discovery and potentially resulted in a perceived volume and level of liquidity of digital assets, including Bitcoin, that was false, misleading, or inaccurate.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has settled charges against Coinbase Inc. for “reckless false, misleading, or inaccurate reporting” as well as “wash trading by a former employee on Coinbase’s GDAX platform”.

The digital asset exchange operator will pay a civil monetary penalty of $6.5 million in order to settle the charges.

Vincent McGonagle, Acting Director of Enforcement of the CFTC, commented: “Reporting false, misleading, or inaccurate transaction information undermines the integrity of digital asset pricing. This enforcement action sends the message that the Commission will act to safeguard the integrity and transparency of such information.”

The CFTC alleged that Coinbase delivered false, misleading, or inaccurate reports concerning transactions in digital assets on the GDAX trading platform between January 2015 and September 2018.

Coinbase automated trading programs, Hedger and Replicator, generated orders that at times matched with one another. The GDAX Trading Rules failed to disclose that Coinbase was operating more than one trading program and trading through multiple accounts.

As Hedger and Replicator matched orders with one another in certain trading pairs and then provided the information for these transactions on its website and to reporting services, Coinbase misled the market.

Reporting firms such as Crypto Facilities Ltd., which publishes the CME Bitcoin Real Time Index, and CoinMarketCap OpCo, LLC, used the misleading trading data from Coinbase for price discovery and potentially resulted in a perceived volume and level of liquidity of digital assets, including Bitcoin, that was false, misleading, or inaccurate.

The CFTC order also charged Coinbase for being “vicariously liable as a principal” for a former employee’s conduct. Over a six-week period—August through September 2016, the former employee used a manipulative or deceptive device by intentionally placing buy and sell orders in the Litecoin/Bitcoin trading pair on GDAX that matched each other as wash trades.

This practice, also known as “wash trading”, misleads the market in regard to liquidity and trading interest in Litecoin.

Parov Stelar at Sziget 2018 (Full Show)

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'Shadow Pandemic': Domestic abuse reports soar amid COVID


Earlier this month, the World Health Organization reported that an estimated 641 million women had faced physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner over the course of their lifetime. Another 95 million were subjected to sexual violence from a non-partner, meaning that 1 in 3 women face such treatment at least once in their lives.

Advocates say COVID-19 has made life riskier for domestic violence victims

While the data, collected between 2000 and 2018, is shocking, the scale of the problem amid the coronavirus pandemic may be even larger, women's organizations in Europe and the UN told ABC News.

That’s because over the past year, women around the world have had to stay at home with their potential abusers, unable to seek help in some cases, in what the U.N. has described as a “shadow pandemic” of domestic violence.

Data is still incomplete, but advocates in several countries have reported dramatic increases in requests for domestic abuse services. In the U.S., the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice reported an 8.1% increase in incidents after lockdown orders.

And advocates and others have developed creative ways to empower women to report abusers and seek help amid the trying circumstances of the pandemic.
‘Shadow pandemic’

At one point in April last year, an Agence France-Presse database suggested that over 3.9 billion people, around half of the global population, had been asked to stay at home to combat the spread of COVID-19 either through mandatory lockdowns or voluntary restrictions.

While global infection rates reduced towards the end of summer, the coronavirus “second wave” saw a number of countries, particularly in Europe, re-enter lockdowns to halt the spread.

According to Anita Bhatia, the deputy executive director of UN Women, those circumstances have played a role in increasing the rates of domestic abuse globally.

“What the pandemic simply did was to create conditions for abuse that are ideal for abusers because it forced people into lockdown,” she told ABC News in a recent interview. “It provided institutional cover for people not being able to leave the house. And so it just was, if you will, the perfect set of circumstances for a perpetrator of abuse.”

With reports emerging last April of increasing rates of violence against women around the world, the UN called the situation a “shadow pandemic.” Yet by September, only 1 in 8 countries had measures in place to protect women from the economic and social impacts of the pandemic, they said, including to tackle violence against women and girls.

Experts on domestic abuse say that the stay-at-home orders ushered in by the pandemic have exacerbated the problem. By having movement so heavily restricted, abusers have had more opportunities to exert control, and the economic crisis has placed an even greater strain on abusive relationships, they say.

A preliminary overview from the EU on the issue of intimate partner violence during the pandemic published this month said that the full scale of the problem is not yet calculable, but “no government can deny the gravity and urgency of the situation in the light of the wave of violence we saw in 2020.”

The British Charity Refuge, the U.K.’s largest provider of specialist domestic abuse services, received an average of 63% more calls and contacts this year, while the French women’s organizations received 70% more calls

© Francois Mori/AP, FILE Posters of women victims of domestic 

violence are pictured at the Saint Michel fountain, Nov. 25, 2020, in Paris.

Two women in England and Wales are killed each week by a current or former partner, according to Refuge, the police receive a call about domestic abuse related call every 30 seconds. Those stats, Lisa King, Refuge’s Director of Communications, told ABC News, are “horrific.” She described the national lockdowns seen at various points across the U.K. as a “bit of a perpetrator’s playground.”

“Women are controlled financially, sexually, psychologically and increasingly technologically as well,” she told ABC News. “A huge, huge issue that has definitely been compounded by the pandemic. We would not say that COVID had caused domestic abuse, but it's certainly exacerbated pre-existing behaviors. And those who certainly experienced domestic abuse will most likely have experienced it more frequently and more severely.”

In France, the National Federation of Women’s Solidarity, which manages a major domestic abuse hotline, saw their shelters completely fill up during the first lockdown. They were forced to open more shelters for women seeking to escape abuse as callouts escalated. After the first lockdown, there were many cases of women and their children experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, Françoise Brié, the organization’s director, told ABC News.

“When you are just like in jail with your perpetrator, it’s more difficult for you to find help,” Brié said. “It’s more easy for the perpetrator to control your activity.”

During the second national lockdown in France, which was less severe, women were “able to go to work, their children are going to school, so it was less difficult for them to reach the calling centers, or the shelters,” she said.

Economic loss and unemployment have exacerbated the issue, Joanna Gzyra, director of communications at the Center for Women’s Rights in Warsaw (CWR) told ABC News.

© Alessandra Tarantino/AP, FILE A woman show a banner reading "alive, free and without debts" during a demonstration on the occasion of International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, in Rome, Nov. 25, 2020.

"Most abusers are good manipulators, so they are often pleading for forgiveness and promising to do better in the future,” she told ABC News, noting that a problem like job loss is an issue even in the best of times. "It causes tension even in most stable relations. In an abusive relationship, such a problem is a pretext, for an illegitimate behavior. The victim often justifies the abuser, because he is really stressed but would never do it otherwise."
Creativity in crisis

The novelty of the extent of the domestic abuse crisis has led people to develop creative ways to report suspected abuse.

In Poland, Krystyna Paszko, a high school student, won a prize this year from the European Union for setting up a fake cosmetic website which allows women to report domestic abuse in a discreet way. When the user places a skin care item into their online basket, a series of coded questions are prompted from psychologists specializing in crisis intervention. They ask, for instance, how long the problem has been going on for, whether it is impacted by alcohol, if the problem also affects your children. Lawyers are also involved, and based on the responses, the authorities will be called to check in.

“I thought I would help one person, maybe two,” she told ABC News. “I am also shocked there was a need for me to create [the website] and that it wasn’t a government initiative, and that so many people need it… it was because of the increase in domestic violence cases due to the COVID-19 pandemic, because of that I decided to face this problem and try to help these people.”

To date, her Facebook page -- named “Chamomiles and Pansies” -- has helped around 350 women report cases of abuse, Paszko told ABC News.

Paszko was inspired after reading reports in France of inventive ways of reporting domestic violence. This month, the French feminist campaign #NousToutes (equivalent of #MeToo in France) will distribute 615,000 bread bags to bakeries around the country. The bags are plastered with information on hotlines to call, as well as educational messages to help identify what domestic abuse actually is. Their reasoning is that the country's bakeries are some of the most accessible places for vulnerable women, even for the isolated amongst them, in France go out to get bread – and they hope the initiative will raise awareness.

And in the U.K. the government has supported the “Ask for Ani” campaign, a domestic abuse codeword that will signal to pharmacies that you are a victim.

“There's a lot of creativity unleashed in times of crisis,” Bhatia said. “And we need to see as many creative initiatives as possible because the standard ways of reporting just don't cut it.”

Similarly, more governments have addressed the issue in coronavirus daily briefings, something unheard of in the past.

“I think that's been a real turning point, in the kind of that that the public and women's understanding of what domestic abuse is,” King said. “You can only do something about a problem if you know what it is and you're experiencing it. So that's helped. And then government, too, has not been able to turn a blind eye to the problem.”

Forced to stay at home, more women have come to recognize the relationships they are in as abusive, according to Brié.

“We also noticed that some women said that they understood at the beginning of the pandemic that they were victims of violence, because they were confronted to the perpetrator every day,” she said. “They didn’t speak about it before.”

Despite this awareness and creative new ways to report violence under trying conditions, there seem to be troubling signs that the reported increase in violence may outlast lockdowns.

“I wish I could say that those countries which have opened up actually have seen declines in violence,” Bhatia said. “We are tracking the data… We see that the levels of violence against women remain fairly consistent. They go up in lockdown, but conversely, they do not necessarily go down when countries open up.”

Opinion: Black-Asian solidarity has a long and storied history in America

Opinion by Van Jones 10 hrs ago

On Friday, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Atlanta to confront the racial hatred that is forcing millions of people of Asian descent to live in daily fear. The trip comes on the heels of Tuesday's carnage -- in which a White man in Atlanta killed eight people, including six Asian women. Though the motive has not yet been established, this shooting spree follows a pattern of increasing violence against Asian Americans, particularly women and elders.

© Ringo Chiu/AFP/Getty Images A demonstrator wearing a face mask and holding a sign calling for "Black Asian Solidarity" takes part in a rally "Love Our Communities: Build Collective Power" to raise awareness of anti-Asian violence, at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, California, on March 13, 2021. - Reports of attacks, primarily against Asian-American elders, have spiked in recent months -- fuelled, activists believe, by talk of the "Chinese virus" by former president Donald Trump and others.

Harris herself is of South Asian descent and has long been a champion of racial justice. Meanwhile, Biden has continually reinforced his commitment to racial justice through his speeches, interviews and statements. And earlier this month, both the White House and Department of Justice hosted listening sessions with leaders in the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community.


As the new Democratic administration acts, it fortunately will have the strong support of the Democratic Party's base -- especially a growing number of African American leaders who are forcefully stepping up in solidarity with the AAPI community.

Black talk show hosts, civil rights icons, faith leaders, recording artists, athletes, directors, writers, entertainers, producers, fashion designers, academics and even a Black former President are taking a stand against anti-Asian hate.

This massive display of solidarity is no surprise to those who know the long history of America's struggle for racial equality. Today's actions build on a centuries-long tradition of Black and Asian American solidarity when it has mattered the most.


Frederick Douglass advocated for Chinese and Japanese immigration (1869): Legendary civil rights icon Frederick Douglass gave a speech about immigration in 1869 at a moment when restricting Chinese and Japanese migration to the United States was central to the political debate. Douglass took a strong stand for a "composite nation" with free migration as a fundamental human right. He declared, "It is this great right that I assert for the Chinese and Japanese, and for all other varieties of men equally with yourselves, now and forever. I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity, and when there is a supposed conflict between human and national rights, it is safe to go to the side of humanity."


During the Philippine-American War, Black leaders and soldiers opposed US colonization (1899-1902): When Filipinos decided to fight for their country's independence instead of accepting US colonial rule, the US launched a war against them. That war created a crisis of conscience for some African American soldiers. Many rejected the idea of subjugating another group of non-White people on behalf of the same country that oppressed and exploited them. In addition, prominent African American figures like Henry M. Turner and Ida B. Wells empathized with the Filipino freedom fighters and spoke out on their behalf.


African Americans protested against the Vietnam War (1965-1975): African American opposition to the Vietnam War was widespread. Leaders like Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out. Protesters carried signs reading "Black men should fight white racism, not Vietnamese freedom fighters." That response was driven by racial injustices showing up at every turn -- from Black people getting drafted at vastly disproportionate rates, to White soldiers mistreating Black soldiers on the battleground, to the White supremacist assumptions at the heart of the war itself.


The Emergency Detention Act was repealed due to joint Black and Japanese American activism (1967-1971): In the late 1960s -- 20 years after Japanese Americans were released from the World War II internment camps -- rumors began circulating about a government-led roundup of African American radicals. Their fear was driven by the Emergency Detention Act of 1950, a law that gave the federal government power to incarcerate anyone suspected of engaging in espionage or sabotage if the President declared an "internal security emergency." When African American activists were unsuccessful in having the law repealed, the Japanese American Citizen League (JACL) leaned in and helped coordinate a campaign that focused on their experiences in the internment camps. The combined effort succeeded in getting former President Richard Nixon to repeal the law.


The unlikely bond between Malcolm X and Yuri Kochiyama changed both their perspectives (1963-1965): Near the end of his life, an embattled Malcolm X was isolated from his original base of support in the Nation of Islam. As he struggled to forge a new path for himself, Yuri Kochiyama, a Japanese American human rights activist, stood by his side. The two became friends and helped each other develop global perspectives on human rights. When assassins gunned Malcolm X down, it was Kochiyama who famously cradled his head as he lay dying on the floor of the Audubon Ballroom.

PART OF THE NEWS & LETTERS MARXIST HUMANIST CIRCLE

Grace Lee Boggs dedicated seven decades of her 100 year-long life to revolutionary justice and civil rights (1915-2015): Grace Lee Boggs was a Chinese American activist who focused much of her work on labor and tenants' rights. She was married to the deeply-respected Black leader, James Boggs; the two made a powerful, iconic pair. Long after his death, she worked on the front lines of the struggles for justice in Detroit, Michigan -- mentoring generations of young leaders, especially African American ones.


After Vincent Chin's murder, Jesse Jackson joined forces with Asian American activists to demand justice (1982): Vincent Chin was a Chinese American man who was beaten to death in Detroit by two White autoworkers who mistook him for Japanese and blamed Japan for the decline of the US automotive market. The year after the racist murder, Black civil rights champions like Rev. Jesse Jackson and leaders of the NAACP played a critical role in bringing attention to his case. The multicultural coalition that came together in that fight helped form the basis of the "Rainbow Coalition," which was central to Jackson's 1984 presidential campaign.


Asian Americans support Black Lives Matter (2020): Many AAPI organizations (including prominent ones like the Asian Pacific Environmental Network and CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities) have long histories of working in multi-racial solidarity with African Americans. During the summer of 2020, many Asian Americans made deep commitments to standing up for Black lives. While some Asian Americans made it a point to support Black Lives Matter in protest, some of the most impactful work has been behind the scenes -- within their own families and communities. For example, Letters for Black Lives provides multilingual resources to help Asian Americans talk about BLM with their families. And more than a dozen AAPI organizations came together recently to produce a toolkit that includes ways to support the Movement for Black Lives. Now, the Black community is coming together to support their Asian American neighbors.


It goes without saying that there also have often been tensions between Black and Asian communities; there are examples of intolerance in both directions. But those low moments do not erase the fact that -- at our best -- both communities have come together repeatedly to advance the cause of justice. And today's crisis is no exception.

Of course, all Americans (not just African Americans) should support AAPI organizations, learn about the issues and get active. Major Asian American organizations and leaders are justly calling for more funding for their work, physical protection, inclusion, justice and care. Their demands should be met.

Collectively, our choices today will define what our great great grandkids will learn in history class. By continuing our noblest traditions of coming together against hatred, all Americans can leave a legacy that all of our progeny will be proud of.

People across U.S. protest anti-Asian hate following deadly spa shootings

"We must stop hate against Asian Americans in this country," former San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro said during a Saturday rally.


March 20, 2021
By Alicia Victoria Lozano

People across the U.S. participated in rallies Saturday to condemn attacks against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders after the shooting rampage in Atlanta that left eight people dead.

From San Francisco to Pittsburgh and points in between, men, women and children marched and spoke out against the surge in hate crimes on members of the AAPI community, which came to a head Tuesday when a shooter targeted three Atlanta-area spas. Six of those killed were women of Asian descent.


"I've dealt with words and looks and stuff my whole life," Ann Johns told NBC News at an Atlanta rally. "My family doesn't want me to go anywhere by myself."

In San Antonio, Texas, former Mayor Juliàn Castro told demonstrators the United States has an "imperfect" history that warrants examining.

"We must stop hate against Asian Americans in this country," said Castro, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration. "For generations, Asian Americans have been discriminated against. I don't have to tell that to anybody in this crowd."

Betty Wu, center, of Bellevue, Pa., and her children, Timmy, 3, and Kayley, 5, hold signs and listen to a speaker during a "Stop Asian Hate" rally to protest the recent surge in hate crimes against Asian Americans on Saturday in Pittsburgh. Alexandra Wimley / AP

In Pittsburgh, actor Sandra Oh told protesters that she is "proud to be Asian," NBC affiliate WXPI reported.

“For many of us in our community, this is the first time we are able to voice our fear and anger, and I am so grateful for everyone willing to listen,” Oh said.


In Chicago, a marcher in the Logan Square neighborhood told NBC Chicago they came out not only to show support for the victims of Tuesday's shootings but to prevent such attacks in the future.

"I come here, I think of not only for me but also for my next generation," demonstrator Dai Quing said. "I think they should have the same opportunity and be respected equal."

Research released this weekby the reporting forum Stop AAPI Hate revealed nearly 3,800 incidents over the course of roughly a year against people of Asian descent. Women made up a far higher share of the reports, at 68 percent, compared to men, who made up 29 percent of respondents.

A day after the Atlanta shootings, a 75-year-old woman in San Francisco was viciously assaulted while walking down the street. Xiao Zhen Xie suffered two black eyes and was struggling to see out of her right eye. She appeared to have fought back.

San Francisco police Capt. Julian Ng said his department will increase its presence in Asian neighborhoods to help soothe community fears.

"Hate can have no safe harbor in American," President Joe Biden said earlier this week during a trip to Atlanta. "It must stop."

Vice President Kamala Harris, who is of South Asian descent, added that "racism is real in America and it has always been."

Alicia Victoria Lozano is a California-based reporter for NBC News focusing on climate change, wildfires and the changing politics of drug laws.

Opinion: Asian Americans are treated as perpetual foreigners. That has to change

Opinion by Rev. Laura Mariko Cheifetz

3/20/2021

Members and supporters of the Asian-American community gather during a 'peace vigil' for victims of Asian attacks, at Union square in New York city on March 19, 2021. (Photo by ED JONES/AFP via Getty Images)

That's what a White male customer at the Poulsbo, Washington, bookstore where my mother and I worked called my mother 28 years ago, when I was just 15.

Our co-worker overheard him and was angry, but my mother was just annoyed. She was simply trying to sell books.

That was the day I began to understand more about what it means to be an Asian American woman in the United States. By college, I knew more about sexualized violence by US military personnel toward women in Asia, and how centuries of racist stereotypes about Asian and Asian American women could be experienced concretely.

A temptation to 'eliminate'

In the March 16 Atlanta shootings, complex human identities -- real lives and stories -- were reduced to objects. Before we knew the names, ages, ethnicities, family backgrounds or migration stories of the six women of Asian descent murdered in three spas spanning the Atlanta metro area, we knew that the man charged with shooting them was a churchgoing White man seeing the spas as a "temptation" that he "wanted to eliminate."

This is textbook sexism, racism, objectification and misogynistic violence.

Asian and Asian American women are objects of temptation. In the alleged shooter's Christian worldview, we are the cause of his sin. His vision fit into an ardently evangelical tradition such as the Southern Baptist Convention, a denomination whose roots are White supremacist, where we are targets for missionary activity, or a jumbled set of stereotypes to be mined for mediocre racist curriculum.

We are not fully human, with loves, religious beliefs, fears, families, shortcomings, hopes.

We are objects

In the early 1900s, Filipinos were put on display like animals at the St. Louis World's Fair. "Ch*nk," "J*p" and "g**k" are slurs hurled at us. During World War II, with persecution of Japanese and Japanese Americans, other Asian Americans would wear buttons declaring "I'm Chinese" or "I'm Korean." Most of us who are not Chinese react, upon being called "ch*nk," with "I'm not Chinese." Vincent Chin, a Chinese American man, was killed by White unemployed auto workers who were angry at Japanese car companies.

We are simply objects. Our ethnic identities matter to us, but not to American White supremacy. We who are Asian or Asian American women have our own lives and agency, but to American White supremacy, we are hypersexualized dragon ladies and young brides to be sold. And to the shooter, objects tempting him to sin. Objects to be eliminated.

© Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA/Reuters Protesters rally against Asian American discrimination and remember the lives lost in the Atlanta shootings, in Chinatown, Washington, DC, March 17. Six women of Asian heritage lost their lives.

These women were likely the most vulnerable among us -- yes, among the so-called model minority. That myth is deadly, erasing the lives that many of us live on the margins, in precarious financial, immigration and vocational situations.


A huge gash in our social fabric

These murdered women leave behind not emptiness, or an absence of temptation. They leave behind families shredded with grief. They leave communities who depended upon them. They leave children who will never be held by their mother again, parents who will never see their daughters, vacant holes in the hearts of an entire network of people who are nothing but faceless Asian hordes to White American supremacy.

© Courtesy Jessica Vazquez Torres Complex human identities 

— real lives and stories — were reduced to objects, 

writes Rev. Laura Mariko Cheifetz.

I told an Asian American friend to quit her habit of running outside for exercise. Another friend, Clara Seo, said she feels like "someone melon-scooped my heart. Someone took a little melon baller and took a tiny round scoop out." Have you ever scooped out a melon? At the end, there is mostly a shell with melon-shaped wounds in it.

White supremacy rips a huge gash into the melon that is our social fabric, and now it is scooping away at us. The 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. The faithful at Mother Emmanuel cut down after Bible study in 2015. The 2012 shooting at the gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. The Asian and Pacific Islander elders who have been beaten, shoved, stabbed and murdered over the past year. Missing and murdered Indigenous women. The migrant children, most of them Mexican and Central American, separated from their families and imprisoned along the border, or disappeared into a foster care system with shoddy tracking. Ahmaud Arbery, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice and George Floyd.


This is who we are

The tale of racist and White supremacist violence in the United States has a narrative arc in the popular imagination. It begins with a violent act, catching dominant culture by surprise. This shock is treated as an exception. It was a bad day, after all, for the perpetrator, and he was at the end of his rope. It is declared that this one-off incident is a bad apple problem. It is "not who we are." And eventually, it is forgotten.

But this is exactly who we are as a country. And say something about how we are still grappling with the project that was the Civil War and slavery? Let's not forget the significance of January 6, when one of the insurgents entered the halls of the US Capitol carrying the Confederate flag.

There is another narrative arc. For those of us who live and love in this country, and are told we are never fully American, the violent act feels familiar. We feel rage and fear. We worry about the family members left behind, the people behind the businesses impacted. We know this is who this country is, and who we are to it: the perpetual foreigner.

And we will not be able to heal until we begin to acknowledge American civilization is made up of shredded pieces of the lives of vulnerable people.

How 'sex addiction' has historically been used to absolve white men

SEX ADDICTION IS A CHRISTIAN EXCUSE FOR

BEING HORNY IN OTHER WORDS IT DOES NOT EXIST

Kimmy Yam 1 day ago

While authorities said Atlanta-area spa shooting suspect Robert Aaron Long, 21, told investigators he was motivated by "sexual addiction" and claimed he had no racial motivation, health specialists say the explanation falls short.

© Provided by NBC News

Capt. Jay Baker, a spokesman for the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office, said Long — who is accused of killing eight people, six of them Asian women — indicated that the spas were "a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate." However, experts say such rationale has been used before in attempts to exonerate white men. The explanation also discounts racial dynamics and can “cause harm” in the way the public understands these issues.

White men have traditionally been given a pass when they say it -- and have the privilege of overlooking how race is a factor, experts say.

“Historically, the term ‘sex addiction’ has been used by white males to absolve themselves from personal and legal responsibility for their behaviors,” Apryl Alexander, associate professor in the Graduate School of Professional Psychology at the University of Denver, told NBC Asian America. “It is often used as an excuse to pathologize misogyny.”


The defense of sex addiction itself, Alexander said, is a highly controversial one as those in the fields of psychology, psychiatry and sex research continue to debate whether to formally recognize it. Currently, the idea that sex addiction is a disorder is not supported by research, nor is it accepted as a clinical diagnosis, she said.

“A lot of individuals who are doing this kind of self-reports of sexual addiction are having normative sexual behaviors and urges, but they might be excessive. Or for a lot of people, it's rooted in shame that ‘I'm having these attractions and emotional desires that are normal, but I don't recognize them as normal,’” Alexander said.

Though American Psychiatric Association added the concept of sexual addiction to its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1987, it later retracted the term and has since rejected the addition of the idea to its later editions including the DSM–5, which is widely seen as the definitive resource on mental disorders, on the basis of the lack of supporting evidence.

Alexander said this sexual behavior doesn’t affect the brain in the same ways other addictions, including substance use and gambling behavior, do, either, calling the characterization of Long’s behavior “concerning.”

The self-identification of sex addiction, she said, is often seen in individuals who are raised in conservative and religious environments, “where there's a high level of moral disapproval of their natural kind of sexual urges and desires.” Many of these populations are overwhelmingly white.

In examining acts of gender-based violence, Alexander said such attacks often occur at the intersection of misogyny, racism, xenophobia and homophobia. She emphasized that contrary to what Long told police, such violence “doesn’t just occur in isolation.”

Richelle Concepcion, president of the Asian American Psychological Association, said accepting the suspect’s rationale in this case erases several colliding dynamics of class, immigration status and gender that impact the communities most at risk for physical and sexual violence.

“Quite frankly, it’s really difficult to attribute the atrocious behaviors to an addiction, especially when you look at the demographics of a majority of those who were murdered,” she said. “Race and gender do play a role in this.”

“It’s really unfair to take his word as there is intersectionality that exists pertaining to the lives taken, especially when one considers that the suspect claims to have gone to these businesses with the intention of eliminating the threat of temptation,” Concepcion added.

Still, sex addiction is a common defense invoked by white men in power. After a number of allegations emerged from multiple women, including several who were underage at the time, accusing comedian Chris D’Elia of requesting sexual favors, he responded with a video in February saying, “Sex controlled my life.” He added, “I had a problem and I do have a problem.”

Harvey Weinstein similarly claimed in a 2017 video that he wasn’t “doing OK” and “I’ve got to get help,” after numerous accusations of sexual harassment and rape. In a statement provided to NBC News, his brother Bob Weinstein described him as “obviously a very sick man.”

And former congressman Anthony Weiner, for example, in 2017 broke down in front of a judge after being sentenced to 21 months in prison for sexting an underage girl. Weiner, who called himself a “very sick man for a very long time,” had aimed to avoid jail time after the judge acknowledged that he had sought and received treatment for the behavior.

But controversies don’t end at the diagnosis itself, and treatments have also been criticized for insufficiently addressing the role of misogyny in sexual behavior. Ideas, including society’s hypersexualization of Asian women, Alexander said, often go unexamined.

“They often don't talk about these hypermasculine attitudes or misogynistic messages that individuals are getting, whether that's from pornography or society at large,” Alexander said. “A lot of these so-called treatment programs often reinforce gender stereotypes. They talk about things like ‘Women are tempting you,’ ‘Women in pornography are trying to seduce you, and that's why you need to avoid’ instead of talking about your own kind of personal attitudes and behaviors that cause you to marginalize women.”

Such framing of women as “temptresses,” particularly in reference to Asian women, in part shifts onus from perpetrator to victim, Concepcion said. It plays into a stereotype of women as manipulative dragon ladies, fueling dangerous perceptions that make them uniquely vulnerable to violence. She explained that there’s a tendency to attribute the reasoning behind violence and murderous acts to others’ malicious intent, creating the perception that these victims who were killed intentionally provoked the perpetrator to violence.

“There have been examinations recently of television shows and even movies from years ago that depicted Asian women as temptresses, which appear to prove these stereotypes of Asian women as fact,” she said.

Alexander said larger toxic societal issues need to be unpacked in this context of treatment, in addition to other experiences that may have contributed to such behaviors.

“Those are the things that need to be addressed as underlying issues in this constellation of things that may have led to maybe sexual preoccupation,” she said. “The sexual compulsions or preoccupations are often associated with other types of underlying psychological issues, unmet emotional needs, childhood trauma or, again, power and control dynamics that contribute to oppression.”

But experts stressed that even when people exhibit attitudes that are indicative of oppression and marginalization of others, that does not often lead to committing an act of mass violence. Contrary to prevailing stereotypes, statistics show that roughly 3 percent to 5 percent of violent acts can be attributed to people who have a serious mental illness. In reality, individuals confronting mental health issues are more than 10 times more likely to be victims of violent crime compared to the general population.

For people dealing with sexual preoccupation that may be causing them distress, experts recommend help and support that approach the issue with positivity. Treatments that are shame-based are never effective, Alexander said, and mitigating feelings of shame comes with comprehensive sex education. Sexuality is marginalized so frequently in culture and it’s not uncommon that people harbor difficult emotions around the subject, unsure of how to wrestle with it, she said.

“A lot of our sex education is rooted in shame and stigma, that we don't talk about normative sexuality and how to work through that — that maybe your urges are natural,” she said.

With the resources available to help people living with mental illnesses, Concepcion said it’s never acceptable to chalk this violent behavior up to having a “bad day.”

“Many of us have bad days and yet a majority of us focus on other forms of coping to alleviate the impact of said days,” she said. “It is never justified to take lives or engage in acts of violence when we ourselves have experienced less than ideal days.”

Guangzhou 1927: The Paris Commune of the East

On the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Paris Commune, its legacy is remembered in the Guangzhou Uprising, when workers and peasants established a popular republic in the southern Chinese capital in 1927.

Tings Chak
20 Mar 2021


(Article originally commissioned and published by The Funambulist 34 

(Mar-Apr 2021)

It was in the Russian autumn of 1920 when Qu Qiubai first heard L’Internationale – the socialist anthem born of the Paris Commune of 1871. Eugène Pottier, author of the song’s lyrics, was a Communard and elected member of the workers’ state that lasted 72 days in the French capital. Though written nearly half a century earlier, that song had been adopted only recently as the anthem of the Bolshevik Party. Until today, this song is one of the most translated and sung anthems of the oppressed around the world. Qu was attending the third anniversary celebration of the October Revolution, having traveled through Harbin – China’s northernmost provincial capital – to reach Russia. Fluent in French and Russian, he was sent to be a correspondent in Moscow for the Beijing Morning News (晨报), covering the early years of the Bolshevik Revolution.

In 1920, the communist movement in China had barely begun, but the nation was hungry for its ideas. The colonial plunders of two Opium Wars marked the beginning of the “century of humiliation”, which saw the ceding of Hong Kong to the British and the sacking of the Old Summer Palace by Anglo-French forces. The Qing dynasty fell in 1911 only to be succeeded by a puppet Republican government. The country was divided, feudalism and warlordism were rampant. The Chinese people were hungry – physically and spiritually – for its nation to be set free.

Like the thousands of young radicals of the time, Qu was politicized in the May Fourth Movement of 1919. The Paris Peace Conference at the end of World War I saw the ultimate betrayal of China’s interests – instead of having its territories returned, the Western Allies would agree to transfer Shandong Province from the colonial hands of Japan to Germany. In response, a national movement led by students in Beijing was born, anchored in anti-imperialist, anti-feudal and anti-patriarchal politics. This awakening gave birth to the New Culture Movement – with New Youth as its key publication – and an opening for new ideas to guide the country’s transformation. Among its leaders were Beijing University professors, Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, who were pivotal in bringing Marxist ideas into China. They both helped found the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1921.

The betrayal by Western Allies was felt all the more after the contributions that the Chinese people made to the Great War. To meet their growing labor shortages, French and British states relied heavily on the colonies across Africa, Indochina and China. 140,000 Chinese people – mostly peasants – joined the French and British war efforts, while another 200,000 fought on the Eastern Front with the Russian Red Army. The Chinese Labor Corps did every task but bear arms – they dug trenches, worked in munition factories, repaired equipment on the frontlines, buried the dead. Thousands died, though this part of history is little told in the West. Around that same time, there was another group of young Chinese people heading to France. Originally initiated by Chinese anarchists in 1908, the program became formalized into the Diligent Work-Frugal Study program in 1919 that brought 2000 Chinese workers and peasants to Paris – they would work in factories in return for their Western education. The poor living and working conditions politicized many of these students – on February 28, 1921, 400 Chinese work-study students demonstrated against further reductions in bursaries. Events like this one brought the movement closer to the WWI-generation workers as they began organizing together in the Renault factories from the industrial suburbs of Boulogne-Billancourt to La Garenne-Colombes. It was from the factory floors and in the university halls where Marxism would enter the Chinese revolutionary thought. Among the students were Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, founders of the European branch of the CPC. Zhou Enlai would serve as Premier for 26 years and Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who succeeded Mao Zedong upon the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
BRIGHT FLOWER, HAPPY FRUIT

Though the Paris Commune was largely unknown to the Chinese public up until that point, these exchanges among workers and intellectuals in France, and the ideological opening that the May Fourth Movement created, helped bring that history forward. Several early communist leaders studied, wrote and popularized the history of the workers’ state. In 1920, Li Da – one of the 12 founding members of the CPC – wrote about the need for the Chinese Revolution to take the path of armed struggle. In 1922, Zhou Enlai wrote in New Youth (新靑年) about the “short-lived flower” of the Paris Commune and its continuation in the October Revolution. The following year, in the 50th anniversary edition of Shen Bao (申報)– one of China’s first modern newspapers – Li Dazhao first explained the concept of the “commune” to a Chinese public. First transliterated as kangmiaoen (康妙恩), the revolutionary concept gained its own form in the Chinese language, gongshe (公社) – a workers’ republic.

Qu Qiubai was among the communists who not only translated essential texts on the Commune’s history but was also the first to translate L’Internationale into Chinese – the song he first heard in Russia three years before. While playing the organ, he painstakingly revised the lyrics to find a translation of the word “international” – which only has two syllables in Chinese (国际) – that could suit the melody. He finally settled on the transliterated ying te na xiong nai er (英特纳雄耐尔) to keep true to the cadence of the song, which remains in the officially adopted version until today.

By this time, Qu had already joined the CPC, upon the invitation of Zhang Tailei in 1922. A year earlier, Qu also met the Bolshevik leader Lenin, who had studied intimately the lessons of the Paris Commune. Just months before leading his own country to revolution, Lenin dedicates a chapter on it in The State and Revolution (1917):


The Commune is the first attempt by a proletarian revolution to smash the bourgeois state machine; and it is the political form “at last discovered”, by which the smashed state machine can and must be replaced.

We shall see further on that the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, in different circumstances and under different conditions, continue the work of the Commune and confirm Marx’s brilliant historical analysis.

In some short months after its publication, the October Revolution would indeed continue the work of the Commune and confirm Marx’s analysis. In this tradition, the Chinese communists would also carry on these the legacy of these two revolutionary experiences.

On 18 March 1926, the first mass commemoration of the 55th anniversary of the Paris Commune took place in China. 10,000 people gathered in the southern capital of Guangzhou. They sung L’Internationale and chanted “Vive la Commune de Paris!” despite the rain. On this occasion Mao Zedong writes, if the Paris Commune was a “bright flower”, then the October Revolution was the “happy fruit”, from which more fruits could be born. On the Commune’s ultimate defeat, Mao points to two reasons: the lack of a unified and centralized party to lead the workers, and the compromise of showing too much mercy to the enemy. In his keynote speech at the celebration, the Cantonese leader, Zhang Tailei, pointed to the concrete experience that the Paris Commune gave for Chinese workers to take power – a foreshadowing of what would come in the following year.


Paris Commune 100 year stamps.

FROM THE CITY TO THE COUNTRYSIDE

The 1920s saw a rapid expansion of the urban working class – trade unions multiplied, strikes were frequent and the CPC’s ranks grew with the organization of the masses. In the industrial center of Shanghai alone, 1926 saw 169 strikes affecting 165 factories involving over 200,000 workers. In Guangdong, the Seamen’s Strike of 1922 was victorious and the Guangzhou-Hong Kong General Strike of 1925 lasted 16 months and garnered unprecedented mass support from domestic workers, dockworkers, rickshaw drivers and “coolies”. These experiences showed how organized labor could threaten colonial life and capitalist order.

Despite industrialization, China was still an overwhelmingly peasant society. In his 1926 Analysis of Classes in Chinese Society, Mao studied the composition of China’s 450 million population. The urban proletariat, however quickly it was growing, still only totaled two million people – the vast majority of Chinese people were peasants. Mao estimated 400 million people were “semi-proletariat” who farmed their own land, but also earned wages as tenant farmers or wage laborers – he called them “our closest friends” (Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society, 1926).

In this foreboding text, Mao also warned that the national bourgeoisie forces could not be trusted. At that historical moment, the CPC was in an alliance with the national bourgeoisie led by the Nationalist Party (KMT) in a “United Front” against warlordism and imperialism. That pivotal year would see an abrupt end to this alliance and the subsequent “White Terror” of mass killings of communists at the hands of the nationalists and their hired hands. The mass insurrections of 1927 were attempts at transforming the symbol of the Paris Commune into a living practice in China, and necessitated a strategic shift in the revolutionary process.

The 1927 commemoration of the Paris Commune ballooned in size, drawing up to one million workers and peasants across the country. At the Wuhan celebration, labor leader Liu Shaoqi called on the workers to carry on the spirit of the Paris Commune jointly with the struggle against imperialism and warlordism. Three days later, 800,000 workers led by Zhou Enlai launched a general strike in Shanghai that overthrew the warlord-controlled government and established a Provisional Municipal Government. Shanghai became the first large city under the leadership of the CPC. But on 12 April, defying the United Front strategy, the KMT under Chiang Kaishek would stage a coup and order the slaughter and disappearance of thousands of Communists with the aid of police of the foreign-occupied areas and criminal organizations. The CPC-KMT alliance was over. The subsequent communist-led urban uprisings from Nanchang (1 August) to Hunan (7 September), and finally to Guangzhou (11 December), would all be brutally crushed.

ALL POWER TO THE WORKERS’, PEASANTS’ AND SOLDIERS’ SOVIETS!

At 3:30 am on 11 December, the first attack began at the police stations. It was led by commander Zhang Tailei, who was killed in an ambush the following day – he was 29 years-old. A series of coordinated actions took over the city. Their demands were: Rice for the workers, land for the peasants! Down with militarist wars! All power to the Workers’, Peasants’ and Soldiers’ Soviets! Behind this mobilization was the Guangzhou Soviet, covering an area of half a million peasants working in conjunction with the urban workers unions. A war council with a 10:3:3 ratio of workers, soldiers and peasants, respectively, led the uprising that lasted three days. Upon taking the city, this body issued a series of eight decrees, mass printed and distributed. The first three focused on the establishment of Soviet power, arming of the people and retaliation against counter-revolutionaries. The fourth secured an eight-hour working day and rights for the waged and unemployed. The fifth dealt with the economy and the nationalization of industry. The sixth demand looked at the property of the bourgeoisie. The seventh to the army wages and restructuring. The eighth and final demanded the reorganization of trade unions. At that moment, however, the military organization of the bourgeoisie was still too strong. Had they held the city long enough for the peasant reinforcements – a six-day march away – history may have turned out differently. Ralph Fox – British journalist and communist later killed fighting in the Spanish Civil War – wrote on the significance of the “Guangzhou Commune”:


For three days a great city in an eastern country dominated by imperialism was seized and held by the oppressed classes ruling through their Soviet. Technical and military errors there were, but, politically, no mistakes were made. The Communist Party of China, which led and organized the revolt, has reason to be proud of its application of Lenin’s teachings in the difficult circumstances of China. The work of the Party in the insurrection showed not only that it had the closest contacts with workers, peasants, petty bourgeoisie and soldiers, but that it understood how to rally the widest masses of all these classes to the support of the revolution by correct slogans and a sure political line. (The Commune of Canton, 1928)

1927 was a turning point for the Chinese Revolution. That the uprisings were brutally repressed was pivotal in the CPC’s strategic shift from the cities to the countryside – towards the creation of a people’s army and towards the peasantry – “our closest friends”. In Lessons of the Commune (1908), Lenin writes, “And although these magnificent uprisings of the working class were crushed, there will be another uprising, in face of which the forces of the enemies of the proletariat will prove ineffective, and from which the socialist proletariat will emerge completely victorious.” Something similar could be said of the Chinese uprisings. After that year of White Terror, at the Sixth Congress of the CPC in 1928, 11 December was officially marked as the anniversary of the Guangzhou Uprising, which “not only opened a new chapter for the Chinese Revolution but also has great significance in the history of world revolution, with the same value as the great Paris Commune”. Holding true to this, the Guangzhou Commune has indeed been remembered, studied and honored since.

2020 was the 93rd anniversary of the Guangzhou Uprising, which became known as the “Paris Commune of the East”. For this occasion a new “red drama” was produced in conjunction with an exhibition at the Guangzhou Uprising Memorial Hall. The late-Qing dynasty building was once used as a Police Academy before being transformed into the seat of the Guangzhou Soviet. In 1987, this site was turned into an official memorial. At the 12 December commemoration event, students from the People’s Liberation Army school recited the tale of Zhang Tailei, a puppet show told the story of the Uprising’s female leaders and the great granddaughter of hero Yang Yin tied a red ribbon around a student’s collar – the symbolic passing on of a revolutionary legacy from one generation to the next.

Up until the anniversary, the immersive drama was performed four times a week. Actors and audience members alike jointly reenact the uprising, donning costumes and taking up weapon props, all the while singing L’Internationale. When Qu Qiubai first heard this song in Russia a century ago, he probably had little idea what role he would play in bringing this anthem from the “bright flower” of the Paris Commune to the Guangzhou Commune. He never lived to see the “happy fruit” in the establishment of PRC in 1949, nor the centenary of the founding of the CPC on 1 July of this year. In 1935, he was captured, tortured and executed by KMT forces. It is said that he sang L’Internationale until his last breath.

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch

Tings Chak is the lead designer and researcher of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, editor of Dongsheng News and a Globetrotter/People’s Dispatch fellow.

THIS IS A PRELUDE ARTICLE TO POSTINGS ON THE 150 ANNIVERSARY OF THE PARIS COMMUNE 1871-2021 WHICH WILL CONTINUE HERE SUNDAY MARCH 21.

German police clash with protesters over Covid-19 restrictions
Issued on: 20/03/2021 -

Police forces clash with protesters in Kassel, Germany,

 March 20, 2021. © Swen Pfoertner, AP

Text by: FRANCE 24 

Protesters in a central German city clashed with police on Saturday over coronavirus measures, with officers using water cannons, pepper spray and batons against people trying to break through police barriers, the German news agency dpa reported.

More than 20,000 people participated in the protests in Kassel, and in addition to clashes with police there were also several scuffles with counter-protesters.

Thousands of people marched through downtown Kassel despite a court ban, and most didn't comply with pandemic hygiene measures such as wearing face masks. Several reporters were attacked by the protesters, dpa reported.

Federal police, who had been brought in in advance from other parts of the country, used water cannons and helicopters to keep the crowds under control.

Police said that several people were detained, but didn't give any numbers.

Various groups, most of them far-right opponents of government regulations to fight the pandemic, had called for protests Saturday in cities across the country.

Virus infections have gone up again in Germany in recent weeks and the government is set to decide next week on how to react.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday Germany will have to apply an “emergency brake” to reverse some recent relaxations of restrictions as coronavirus infections accelerate.

Exponential growth of new cases

Germany’s national disease control center said new infections were growing exponentially as the more contagious COVID-19 variant first detected in Britain has become dominant in the country.

On Saturday, the Robert Koch Institute reported 16,033 new cases and registered 207 additional deaths, bringing the overall death toll to 74,565 in Germany.

In Berlin, some 1,800 police officers were on standby for possible riots, but only about 500 protesters assembled at the city's landmark Brandenburg Gate. Meanwhile, around 1,000 citizens came together on Berlin's Unter den Linden boulevard to protest against the far-right demonstration.

Police had to intervene when some far-right protesters tried to attack press photographers, but in general, a police spokeswoman told dpa, “there's not much going on here.”

In advance of the Berlin protests, authorities had announced they would create three special, police-protected areas where journalists could withdraw to when under attack by protesters. As in other countries, reporters are increasingly targeted during far-right demonstrations in Germany.

Protesters also hit the streets in other cities across Europe. In London, demonstrators opposing the U.K.'s months-long lockdown defied police who warned of potential fines and arrest for violating prohibitions on most group meetings.

In Finland, police estimated that about 400 people without masks and packed tightly together gathered in the capital, Helsinki, to protest government-imposed COVID-19 restrictions. Smaller demonstrations were scheduled in other Finnish cities.